Short story by Ramzauva Chhakchhuak: ‘People in the neighborhood didn’t even care if Bala was looking straight at them. It was as if he didn’t exist.’

A poem by Karan Madhok: ‘there are a million other things / you could do besides breathing / the outside air, / asbestos and apathy / make a heady cocktail’

Six poems by John Copley Alter: ‘Three ages ago you were / wrestling with mortality, my brother. / Today you are open in my mind like / a score of music, a keyboard, waiting.’

Poem by Amya Roy: ‘You rested in our rainbow, / too many silences sit across us, / staring in our eyes, / waiting for us to speak.’

‘I was overcome with fear and awe, witness to a power I could feel but couldn’t comprehend’. In another account of his adventures in the Garhwal Himalaya, Zachary Conrad recalls a treacherous trek to Sahastra Tal.

Two poems by Antara Mukherjee: ‘The war cry has long bled the emblem, all sons / Headless heap now, trumpetless coronation’

Short story by Vedant Srinivas: ‘The guards meanwhile had crept through the bushes on both sides and brought back big brambles. I looked at the pile, then at them and guessed what they were planning. But I was too terrified to ask.’

Poem by Aaqib Khatibi: ‘I see them drifting along the smoke by the ocean / to lavish lands which are mine no more’.

Matchmaking can be a tricky exercise, especially for cats. In a poignant essay, Barnali Ray Shukla shares the story of Zorro and Ginger, and the complex fissures of politics and morality that tug apart a pucca rishta.

Ghazals by Amrit Lal “Ishrat” Madhok, translated from Urdu by Karan Madhok: ‘Are we mere companions, or do we swim / Together in the fountains of heaven, waters blue?’

Two poems by Santasree Chaudhuri: ‘Blissful acceptance / Staring at the moon / with an empty stomach.’

Short story by Samia Ahmed: ‘This is not an introduction, it’s a mating ritual. I am twenty-four and ripe for marriage.’